This Place Is
by TheSecretCity
Summary: A snapshot of Hotch after he comes back to work after Foyet's attack. For the July TV prompt.
1. This Place Is

This Place Is

It was a small cave off the highway where the last body was found, and the unsub's lair, and the unsub. Hotch had talked him down with a blow horn in four hours, and he was tired. Of this one-horse town, of the dirty backwoods, of the blood patterns everywhere. Even the red hues of the sunset were making it worse.

Prentiss and Rossi were flanking him. He really wished they'd get lost. Ever since Foyet had attacked him, one or the other was usually at arm's length. Closer, if possible.

"You see that sunset, Emily?" Rossi asked. Hotch restrained a sigh. It was the new game between those two, as his protectors, to talk around him until he joined in.

"Beautiful," Prentiss agreed. "Reminds me of one I saw in Italy, when we went to Tuscany for a week."

"It is colorful enough to be Italian," Rossi agreed.

"Would you two just _stop_, for the love of God?" Hotch demanded, sick of all of it, the banality and hopelessness of the whole thing. "Just stop. This place is death, nothing but death, how can you be rambling on about a godforsaken _sunset_?"

"Because you need to extract your head from your ass," Rossi told him.

"No, I need to find Foyet."

"You can't do that with your head lodged firmly up your ass, I guarantee you. Remember my case in Indianapolis? When did it get solved? When my head was forcibly extracted from my ass, that's when. So don't give me that bullshit."

Hotch shoved past Rossi and went to the SUV. He knew Prentiss would come next, to soothe and smooth, and he just might hit a woman for the first time in his life if she did. He was so angry he felt tremors in his hands.

He waited. Prentiss didn't come. Damn Rossi, he knew he'd just shoved Hotch too hard.

The only other one at the SUV was JJ on the phone, and she wasn't paying any attention to him.

Hotch didn't even know who he was calling until Garcia answered the phone.

"What's going on, boss? Do you get to come home?"

"Yeah, Garcia."

"That isn't relief I hear in your voice, Fearless Leader."

"I may murder Rossi and Prentiss. They're going to drive me insane."

"I told them to quit."

And that surprised him more then anything else. "Garcia?"

"I need you to do something for me, Hotch. I need you to buy yourself a donut of your choice, and take a walk while eating it. I want you, for the ten minutes you will be walking and eating that donut, to only think about the pretty, shiny, happy things around you. Not about Foyet, or Rossi or Prentiss or this team, or anything vaguely crime related. I want you to do this once a day except while on cases, because I know that's hopeless. Ten minutes a day. Rossi and Prentiss will leave you alone more, and I won't worry about your sanity either. Okay?"

He sighed. "I just want to have Jack and Haley home."

"I know. No one more then you, but we all do. You gotta believe that."

"I do, Penelope. I really do."

"Then try not to kill Prentiss, okay? That's my wingman. She finds guys that pretend to be FBI agents to get girls and we get to humiliate them."

He snorted. "You two would be great running an interrogation room together."

"I know. We are supremely awesome together."

"Thanks, Garcia."

"No more homicidal urges?"

"I won't kill Prentiss. Rossi isn't out of the question."

"More of a fair fight, though. Don't tell Em I said that."

"I won't."

"Donut. Walk. Nice, shiny thoughts. Ciao, Boss."

And she severed the connection.

Prentiss and Rossi appeared to be having a silent debate over who got to go to Hotch and calm him down. JJ was still on the phone. Morgan had Reid in a headlock, albeit a friendly one, and Hotch wondered if they knew what an odd couple they made, Morgan looking like a mob enforcer and Reid like a college student.

He looked at the sunset. It was still blood-red, dripping blood, but there was an amount of poetry in it, because it was the unsub's blood, almost. Not innocent blood. Not this time. Not all of it.

Maybe it had been a bloody sunset when Foyet had killed that old couple and that bus full of people.

Maybe not.

FINIS


	2. A Walk and a Donut

Author's Note: I wanted to send this one out to Katie-you are rock-n-roll, seriously-who mentioned *hint hint* that she wanted to know what Hotch did on that walk. So here it is!

A Walk and A Donut

The town did have a bakery, which was open even at night. He went in and got a donut. Between him, the cashier, and Garcia it was rather indulgent, but for him it was downright sinful-a chocolate filled chocolate donut, with more dark frosting on top.

"Like your sweets, honey?" the cashier asked.

He smiled. "A friend of mine recommended I get one."

"Skinny kid? You send him to me, he'll be five pounds heavier before he leaves."

No point in saying it was Garcia. "He'd weigh more if her didn't live off coffee and Pixie Stix."

"Ain't that the truth."

Donut to hand, he went out, remembering Garcia's instruction to think happy thoughts.

Jack and Haley were safe. They had caught the unsub-no, wait, no crime thoughts. He took a bite and started again.

Jack and Haley were safe. The donut was an excellent idea-it slid down like Scotch.

Garcia brought him cookies, believing wholly in the restorative powers of sugar.

He had been able to indulge his guilty pleasure of sniffing Prentiss's hair on the flight in, a mixture of raspberry and vanilla, and at least three of her hairs had fell on his shirt. Corny but true. He had a very high-school crush on Emily Prentiss.

Sean had finally opened his restaurant in New York City, and it had gotten some good reviews. His brother deserved that. He really was a good cook. But telling him that would result in a super-inflated ego, so Hotch shut up and ate whatever Sean deemed fit to go through the mail.

He was alive to enjoy the walk, and the donut. Which was leaving crumbs all over his jacket, the only truly clean article of clothing left. He'd fly back in yesterday's suit, and doubtless Strauss would find a reason to see him in that state, and take it as further proof that he was unraveling at the seems.

Bad thoughts. He could hear Garcia scolding him.

Reid hadn't brought the book-on-tape version of _Foundation_. Not that he minded Isaac Asimov, but after the sixth go-round it was a bit old. Maybe he'd get Reid another book-on-tape for his birthday, something newer that everyone could listen to in the SUV. Keeping Reid supplied with fictional entertainment materials was like trying to chase a speeding car on foot, but Hotch's theory was that if enough people were chasing the speeding car, someone could catch it and slow it down. So far, Dave refused to participate in Hotch's experiment.

His cell phone rang. He considered ignoring it until he finished the last crumb of chocolate, but old habits took over and the phone was in his ear.

"O great and furry one, how art thou?"

"Hey Garcia."

"I assume you took my advice?"

He looked at the last bite of donut. "I did."

"Good. Now I can tell Rossi to knock off the heart attack he was fixing to have because you were out of his line of sight. Man has more control issues then anyone I've ever heard off, and I work with you guys. Are you sure he didn't escape from the zoo?"

"Positive," he laughed. "But he was at McLean a long time for their resident forensic psychologist."

"I will check upon that and see if they want him back."

"Have them replace him with someone less annoying. And better looking."

"No problem. Over and out, my darling."

He took the last bite of donut.


End file.
